FairTax legislation would shift taxation from production to consumption!

We have advanced the idea there should be a Boston Tea Party-type revolt against our federal tax system. It is unfair, complex beyond comprehension, burdensome, oppressive, invades constitutional rights and is harmful to economic growth and prosperity.

Sound off on the important issues at The revolt advocated was not to stop paying your income taxes but to join in a national effort to replace a system which has been totally corrupted. Steve Forbes is correct when he says "the existing income tax system is beyond repair and the only solution is to repeal the laws which govern it, dissolve the IRS and replace it with a system which is simple, fair and transparent."

Is there such a plan? Yes, and bills have been introduced in the U.S. House and Senate. House Bill 25 was introduced in 2003 by Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., and Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, is one of 50 co-sponsors in the House. Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., are co-sponsors of Senate Bill 25. The proposed legislation is patterned after a plan researched and authored by Americans for Fair Taxation known as the "FairTax." Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., remarked that the FairTax is "the most well-researched tax proposal to come before Congress ... a decade and more than $22 million in research."

The FairTax bills would shift the focus of taxation from production to consumption. It would abolish all federal personal, gifts, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment and corporate taxes and replace them with a federal retail sales tax. Everyone would get all of their pay each payday minus state and local deductions. Your gross pay becomes your net pay.

Studies from Harvard University identified that most Americans are not aware they are paying an average 22 percent tax embedded in every new purchase. With these embedded costs 90 percent removed, retail prices would drop, and the initial sales tax rate of 23 percent added to new goods and services, would leave retail costs roughly unchanged. The Fairtax will raise the same revenue as today. Business-to-business transactions are exempt. Social Security and Medicare are funded from the sales tax revenue.

All US Social Security cardholders would receive a rebate equivalent to the sales tax expected to be paid on essential goods and services called poverty level expenditures. The size of the rebate is determined by the Department of Health and Human Services' poverty level multiplied by the tax rate. It is called a "prebate" since it precedes the tax and requires no record keeping. The prebate eliminates the "regressive" argument that a national sales tax would penalize low-income families.

Low-income families would actually benefit because they would not have the combined Federal Insurance Contributions Act-Federal Unemployment Tax Act withheld (15.3 percent) and like everyone else would receive the prebate. Almost all Americans see a significant net gain.

Respected economists calculate the efficiency and incentive gains of the FairTax will also drive our economy to unprecedented new heights.

Economists estimate that reducing tax-compliance cost will cause real investment to grow by 76 percent, exports to jump by 26 percent, and interest rates to drop 20 to 30 percent. Billions more will be collected from the underground economy which is missed today.

The long-term effect on our trade-deficit will be dramatic. U.S. products will compete in foreign markets free of the approximately 22 percent current tax burden. With the FairTax, U.S. and international companies will re-locate to the United States because we will be a tax haven. High-worth Americans are moving their citizenship and much of their spending to other countries because of the 55 percent U.S. estate tax. The FairTax would bring these people and their associated jobs back home.

To learn more about the FairTax plan, visit FairTax's Web site online. For the FairTax to become a reality there must be a groundswell of demand at the grassroots level. Let's make April 15 just another nice spring day.

 Wiley Brooks is the Alaska director of Americans for Fair Taxation in Anchorage, and Donald N. Anderson is an Anchorage businessman.

"FairTax legislation would shift taxation from production to consumption!"

Given that I spend everything I make -- and that ain't gonna change -- all we're doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Taking 50% of my income or 50% of what I spend amounts to the same thing.

You're going to see a ton of these "agendatorials" posted as news between now and the 15th. 17% flat tax is the right answer, 10-5-2 (local, state, federal). It's truly fair, and non-regressive. All other domestic taxation goes. Any "play money" the government needs would have to come from taxes on foreign goods and services. I believe you would see the deficit gone in about 3 years, and general/retirement savings go up by a factor of ten. Unemployment would drop to around 2.7-3%.

"Taking 50% of my income or 50% of what I spend amounts to the same thing"

You miss the big picture. you are sitting here where income taxes are imbedded in the cost of everything made HERE but nothing made elsewhere. You get frustrated that the finished imported products sold in Walmart cost less that what it would cost to buy the raw materials here. There are two partys in the global market that supplies Walmart, domestic that pays all the taxes and imports that don't. You will slowly die of starvation unless that imbalance can be changed.

"-- Taking 50% of my income or 50% of what I spend amounts to the same thing --"

You miss the big picture. you are sitting here where income taxes are imbedded in the cost of everything made HERE but nothing made elsewhere. You get frustrated that the finished imported products sold in Walmart cost less that what it would cost to buy the raw materials here. There are two partys in the global market that supplies Walmart, -- domestic that pays all the taxes and imports that don't. You will slowly die of starvation unless that imbalance can be changed. 8 dd2

Well put, det dweller... None of the above 'pro income tax' people can explain ~why~ they want our present insane system to continue. Could it be that they all have some sort of vested interest in business as usual, and don't care if this Republic is on the road to serfdom? --

There would't be any income, investment, savings, or productivity if there wasn't consumption.

Consume wisely! -- Save and invest what you can.

Your Nightmare inanely again: If everyone did that we would have terrible returns on our investments.

Always Right chimes in:

So you think an economic depression is a good thing? If people reduce their consuption, the economy goes in the toilet.

You two are so frantic to defend the status quo that you forget our present tax structure is insane. Our Republic is in an economic toilet, and you fellas are in there too, with your eyes shut, blindly blowing bubbles in sewage you see as 'a good thing'.

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